cover one's ass

Slang definitions & phrases for cover one's ass

cover one's ass

modifier

: writing long cover-your-ass memos

verb phrase

To provide or arrange for exculpation; devise excuses and alibis: Some call it ''risk management,'' others ''covering your ass''/ The FBI may have to let you be destroyed to cover its own ass/ CYA, you know, that old French expression that means making sure that when historians write about it all it won't be seen as happening on your shift

The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.Cite This Source

Idioms and Phrases with cover one's ass

cover one's ass

Also,cover one's hide or oneself. Make excuses or otherwise take action to avoid being blamed, punished, or harmed. For example, The first thing you learn in the army is to cover your ass, or Jane is ingenious at finding ways to cover her hide. The first phrase, considered vulgar slang, dates from the 1960s; the variants are more polite.